Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Upping the ante on his exuberant, inventive debut, The Black Minutes (2010), Solares returns with a hugely ambitious, two-part crime novel depicting the near-total breakdown of society in the fictionalMexican port city of La Eternidad, Tamaulipas, presumably modeled on his hometown of Tampico. In part one, ex-cop Carlos Treviño, run out of town because he dared to catch a killer, is hired to find a powerful businessman's kidnapped daughter. Part two is told from the POV of his nemesis, the powerful and wholly corrupt Police Chief Margarito Gonzales, who now has urgent problems of his own. Plot summary is pointless. This is a powerful, kaleidoscopic tale set in a society where there is no center to hold; where the army, police force, and drug cartels all function as gangs with complex agendas and shifting alliances; and where human life comes unspeakably cheap. Solares offers a harrowing vision of how it all works, or doesn't, from the bribes that grease the wheels to the blood that paints the walls, to the last gasps of the peaceful town and the natural world around it. Exposition occasionally intrudes upon the fiction, and the lack of linearity will deter some readers, but this is another urgent and vital work from a writer to watch.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Solares follows The Black Minutes with a gripping crime story set amid Mexico's escalating drug cartel wars and a nationwide atmosphere of police and judicial corruption. Extortion, kidnapping, and wholesale murder rule the Gulf city of La Eternidad in 2014. When a wealthy businessman's teenage daughter is kidnapped, he reluctantly asks ex-cop Carlos Treviño for help. However, because he was an honest cop, Carlos is hiding from his most dangerous enemy: Police Chief Margarito González, a corrupt, vicious killer with a grudge. Carlos takes the case but knows he cannot trust anyone-certainly not the police, the military, the American consul, the man who hired him, or even the loyal bodyguard assigned to help him. His investigation is full of menace and contradictions, pitting him against merciless narco gangs and the equally ruthless and greedy officials who protect them. Betrayal is a constant threat, and Carlos knows he's on borrowed time. He is a good detective, bold and smart, and soon realizes the kidnapping is much more complex and sinister than he first thought. This is an excellent, frightening portrayal of the breadth and depth of Mexico's cartel violence and systemic corruption. Agent: Veronica Gagno, Schavelzon Graham Agencia. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Carlos Treviño left the police force in La Eternidad, on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, to escape the corruption brought by the cartels. When the daughter of a wealthy local is kidnapped, an all too common occurrence, he is dragooned into returning and assisting in finding her. He begins his investigation by dodging the cartels, who are battling for control of the city and its routes north, as well as the powerful chief of police, who is eager to remind Treviño why coming back to his city is a bad idea. Since there has been no ransom demand, it is quickly understood that this isn't an ordinary abduction. Risking life and limb, Treviño ultimately locates the girl but at a high cost. The second half of the book follows police chief Margarito Gonzalez, who is being forced to retire as part of a reform campaign. A bloody assassination attempt leaves him wounded and his closest associates in the department dead. As he desperately tries to make his own exit, his trail crosses that of Treviño and the missing girl and those of the inexorable forces shaping modern Mexico. VERDICT This gritty noir by Solares (The Black Minutes) combines a compelling mystery with political upheaval and will appeal to fans of fast-paced thrillers in grim locales. [See Prepub Alert, 3/26/18.]-Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Crime novels don't get much grittier or more brutal than the second thriller by Solares (The Black Minutes, 2010), set in a contemporary northern Mexico that's a blood-soaked moonscape."This isn't a city anymore," a former colleague tells Carlos Trevio when the ex-cop returns to the corrupt, cartel-run coastal city of La Eternidad. "It's a...western." The teenage daughter of a wealthy industrialist has been kidnappedan everyday occurrence here, given the vicious turf wars and power struggles that have emptied out the city, closed its clubs and restaurants, and left the streets filled with countless roadblock shakedowns and the burned-out husks of cars. But the girl's body hasn't been discovered, and there's been no demand for ransom. Might she still be saved? Though Trevio is a wanted man here, having crossed the police chief and his minions by being incorruptible, the reluctant detective gets coaxed back from his remote hideaway by the possibility of a gigantic paycheck. Meanwhile, Trevio's old police antagonist, the venal opportunist (and thus survivor) Chief Margarito Gonzlez, is trying to feather his nest before retiring, and he'd love to exact revenge against Trevio on the way out. Solares' great gift here is for setting. He captures heart-wrenchingly the grim chaos and hopelessness of a country run by drug lords, smugglers, and the sleazy kleptocrats they own. Some readers may struggle with the machismo that dominates not only the city, but the novel, and in the second half especially, which focuses on Margarito's grafts within grafts and intrigues within intrigues, the plot and structure grow a bit too baroque and disorderly, but Solares keeps the pace high, the pages turning.A sort of Mexico Confidential, with noirish atmosphere to burn and a very high body count. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
